A groundbreaking international study of over 1,000 adolescents and young adults at risk for psychosis has found that social and academic difficulties emerge years before clinical symptoms appear, offering a critical window for early intervention.

Psychosis, a symptom of mental illness, refers to a mental state when one loses touch with reality and can involve hallucinations, delusions or difficulty deciphering reality.

This study is one of the first papers to analyze data from the Accelerating Medicines Partnership Schizophrenia® project, the largest and most diverse international study of psychosis risk to date. An international consortium of 43 sites recruited participants from 13 countries to complete clinical interviews, cognitive testing and symptom assessments.

The study, led by Assistant Professor Henry Cowan, analyzed early data from the AMP SCZ® project, finding that functional decline and negative symptoms appear to develop well before psychosis-risk syndromes are identified. Early-life social and academic struggles strongly predicted later negative symptoms and cognitive impairment.